TGA

The New York Marathon has been cancelled and people are "outraged"!! well excuse me but didn't some serious sh!t just happen?.. Just watched the news with people whinging (jock, irish and english accents) I'm shocked and a bit embarrassed TBH.. Big deal, you've lost your flight money... some poor buggers have lost there homes, lives ect...

FFs

sir_eccles

I was originally in favor of it running, you know show must go on, keep calm and carry on sort of thing. But to hear it from some of my friends who live there, they are saying don't run it and New Yorkers are really the sort that would carry on regardless as they did after 9/11. If it had been maybe even a week or so further off it might have been ok.

MtbbikeVanlife

First of all, the people I heard whining in tv yesterday and today were from the US... Texas and California in particular.
Second, most of the whining is to do with the last minute decision to cancel.... If the event had been cancelled just 24 hours earlier a lot of people could have avoided travelling and therefore maybe been able to get their flight costs etc back. However, right up to he moment it was cancelled, people were being encouraged to still come...
I must admit though, as a marathon runner myself, I wouldn't have been comfortable taking part knowing the hardships people in the area are suffering.
Carl.

Macca67

It would have been more of a steeplechase than a flat run, anyway. I'm surprised they didn't call it off on Monday.

Lion in Winter

I've run that race (well towards the back). It starts in Staten Island, scene of the worst damage and loss of life, and the resources involved in hydrating, blanketing, medaling, photographing, emergency servicing all those runners, not to mention prepping and policing the course is vast. Not only would it not have felt right to run, but if the City and the New York Running Club can muster those sorts of resources for a race, it would look better on them to muster them to help people in need instead. It should have been deferred or canceled from the get go, imo.

penguinbar

As a New Yorker, I first was glad that it wasn't cancelled but now I must say I think it was the right decision. I was very lucky that nothing happend to our apartment. Less than 10 blocks away people had to evacuate. The marathon goes up First Avenue right near my apartment. The restaurant that I worked at closed for three days and then opened Wednesday. We had lines out the door. What amazed me was the attitude of some people when we said there was no tables or bar seats available. They were very nasty.This was from tourists and locals. Most people were really great and waited as much as two hours for a table or seat at the bar. Others couldn't believe we had no room.

The police and firemen are needed in the hardest hit areas. Not to be security at the marathon. I think that there would have been some pretty bad riots of the marathon did go on.


Some of the local pubs are taking donations of food, clothing etc. My grandmother had a bungalow in the Rockaways when I was a kid and we went out there every summer. I am gathering up what I can to help. I am so saddend by all this.

Cuthbert Rizla

Okay, this is going to be unpopular, but here are my views.
New York City has done itself a great disservice not only by cancelling this marathon but also the manner in which it was done.
There is absolutely no logistical reason why this race couldn't have been run.
The course could have been easily changed to avoid badly hit areas, with a start and finish in Central Park and the race simply run in Manhatten.
Mayor Bloomberg was right to insist that no resources would have been taken away from the recovery effort - he is,after all,one of those in charge of them.
Instead at the last minute he has bowed to political pressure from a population which has been quite happy to see those tourists stranded in New York during Sandy ripped off in every conceivable way - most notably a massive hike in hotel charges for the extra nights they were forced to stay.
Now thousands of athletes from the rest of the States and all over the world have either arrived for a wasted visit meaning flights and hotels can't be re-arranged or have had to cancel their plans at the last minute.
On a wider point it appears from the outside that New York City is struggling to cope with what, in the grand scheme of natural disasters that occur throughout the world, is really not that big a deal.
Of course there is sympathy for the loss of life and destruction of property but I don't recall the the huge outburst of protest in New York when the authoriities were slow to react to Katrina - New Orelans might just as well have been a foreign country.
And the destruction and deaths caused by Sandy in the Caribbean before it hit the East Coast have simply been erased from memory by the US media.
Running this marathon would have sent a clear signal to the world that New York is bouncing back AND fulfilling its obligation to tourists and visitors who at all other times keep this city from going bankrupt.
Instead for political expediency and cowardice Bloomberg has thrown in the towel and the New Yorker's tradtional " screw you " attitude has come to the fore again.

ian-mstm

To many in the north, the deep south is a foreign country. They were certainly happy enough to carpetbag the area following the war of northern aggression.


I don't disagree with you... but I don't entirely support your position either. Time will tell whether or not it was a good decision.

Ian

WEBlue

Speaking as someone who lives in a neighbouring state and has several relatives living in the NYC area, I think the mayor of NYC was caught in a lose-lose scenario. Nothing he decided would please everyone, and he would have been angrily criticized either way. As has happened....

celticgrid

This. Definitely no right decision, though exacerbated by the changing decision.

MMcD

NY Marathon: A race to do the "right thing".......

http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon...hotos/1680421/

Bootle

Actually there are some badly hit areas in Manhattan. There are a number of logistic issues which Bloomberg just ignored in his briefings. Such as the fact they were closing the main route into midtown Manhattan as the Midtown tunnel is still going to be closed. Many residents in Manhattan didn't get their power back on until late Friday early Saturday.

Also more than half the Marathon route is not on Manhattan. The first third of the Marathon would have actually gone past the hardest hit areas of the storm.

At this stage the Marathon is the last thing that needed resource. It's a significant disruption to New Yorkers even without the storm, it cuts of whole swathes of New York as roads are closed for the whole day. It wasn't just the resources required to hold the marathon, which are largely volunteers and event staff, but also first responders who have been working double shifts since last Sunday.

The main issue is that Bloomberg being didn't have the balls to make the proper decision from the beginning.

penguinbar

On a wider point it appears from the outside that New York City is struggling to cope with what, in the grand scheme of natural disasters that occur throughout the world, is really not that big a deal.


Not really that big a deal! Are you f...ing serious!!!

The people of New York City did not cancel the marathon. Mayor Bloomberg did.

I spent the morning gathering up and buying toiletries, food, cleaning and pet supplies to donate to a local pub in my area who is taking supplies out to the Rockaways.I hope to go out there tomorrow or at least go to a shelter to help out.

Why don't you stop mouthing off and donate something. New Yorkers and many others all across the world are pitching in and helping out.

You're an idiot

Bluegrass Lass

I really can't begin to tear apart your post. I can't believe you're serious that you think this weather event wasn't that big of a deal. You may think this is the northeast's just desserts for not being up in arms about Katrina, but I wish no harm on anyone.

The mayor did the right thing. He has an obligation to the residents, not some tourists that want to come in and take up valuable hotels, and put even more strain on a transpo systems that are still crippled. I know if something similar to this happened in my town (i.e. EF5 tornado, or a 9.0 earthquake), I'd expect my local authorities to cancel tourist events and focus on getting affected areas stabilized.

If I had a trip planned to some city that just got walluped by a natural disaster, the last thing I would want to do is travel to that city and put even more of a stain on available resources such as food, water, shelter, etc. It would be in extremely selfish traveler/individual who would still expect locals to provide services to me, when their suffering who knows what kind of losses.

Cuthbert Rizla

Rather than get abusive which is a common reaction among people faced with uncomfortable truths you need to put things into context.
Sandy wasn't even a hurricane when it hit land and its effects were small compared to major disasters such as Katrina and the Boxing Day tsunami both of which were truly devestating.
The fact that a week later parts of New York are struggling to cope says more about American inability to deal with something like this, as in the case of Katrina, than the magnitude of the event.
Put into context Sandy slipped off the world's front pages by about day three when the Presidential election cranked up again for the final push.
And if the storm hadn't happened on the front door step of America's biggest media organisations and instead occurred elsewhere such as the MidWest it wouldn't be getting the coverage in America that it is now.
As I posted earlier there is natural sympathy for people who have lost family members or their property but it's hard to continue to feel sorry for a place where people are queing up overnight outside the Apple store for the new ipad mini just a couple of days after a so-called disaster.
That certainly put things into context.